Assuring successful change

Audits at easyJet

Audit comes of age

Audit teams are blessed with deep finance and accounting expertise to meet statutory financial control and reporting duties. Recently, however, the business environment has become much more complex, with major shifts in technology and enterprise critical programmes to deliver change. As a result, the role of audit has expanded, leading many audit committees to rethink the skills they need and creating significant challenges for audit functions.

Pelicam ensures successful delivery of business and technology programmes

“Pelicam practitioners were able to use their extensive experience to provide real-life examples of issues and solutions. This was a real value-add to the Internal Audit process, and was recognised and appreciated as such by the project team.”

— Mark Johnston, Head of Internal Audit, easyJet

The Problem:

easyJet Internal Audit are highly qualified and experienced in all aspects of financial risk and audit controls, but recognised the need to grow project and programme expertise. They were short of the resources needed to assess two key programmes: HR Transformation (including the integration of new HR and Payroll platforms); and Customer Payments (CPP).

The Solution:

Rather than a simple controls audit, the team were keen to ensure the review provided clear directives to improve confidence in delivery, whilst developing in-house expertise and knowledge. Pelicam led the stakeholder meetings and drove the questioning to uncover potential issues and risks, and judge the authenticity of planned mitigations. A consistent and reliable reporting framework was created to enable meaningful, clear, digestible and actionable reports.

The Result:

Findings were discussed at all stakeholder levels, embedded in programme governance, and were followed up 6 weeks later to measure progress.

Visibility and confidence were given to the audit committee that the programmes were under control with acceptable levels of risk exposure.

Pelicam practitioners built in-house skills and knowledge to ensure Internal Audit maintained business credibility – they are now considered an essential part of the governance for all transformation and change projects.

Pelicam is easyJet's preferred supplier, working on multiple project streams.

“We initially had some concerns about potential loss of control and relying on outsourced knowledge, but we realised that third party resources can work very effectively alongside in-house staff to gain greater synergies. This has changed how the business views the value we add, they are recognising the insight we can bring...” — Mark Johnston, Head of Internal Audit, easyJet.

“Corporate leaders are demanding internal audit improve visibility across the enterprise and provide strategic insights that can deliver lasting value. Internal auditors need to ensure they have the right people in the right place at the right time to meet these expectations, otherwise the business will leave them behind. There’s a lot of project intelligence required to uncover the critical issues and risks in most projects and programmes. You need to be part consultant, part detective ..... as an expert independent advisor, clients are finding we are uniquely positioned to help them.” — Peter Mayer, Managing Partner, Pelicam.